AUT: Harald, welfare state

["Nate Holdren" <nateholdren@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Harald-

This isn't a direct reply, just some thoughts that you stirred up.

in reply to Arianna you said

>the "well-fare state," the state control over increasingly more
>parts of our life, a sort of de-privatization (even when not
>directly run by, but only regulated by the state) in the sense
>that what formerly was controlled by the family (and often
>religious institutions too) no longer is. At least in the part of
>the world we seem to be talking about, there are far more
>social workers (I do not here use "social worker" in the sense
>used by Negri. and so on), sociologists etc than there
>ever was in the so-called Fordist era, and there are far more
>workers employed by "the welfare state" now than then.

This is very relevant to some of us here in the US.

I'm no expert and the old version of the welfare state is before my time,
but the impression I get is that much of the apparatus of administration
that ran the provisioning of 'welfare' still remain while the actual
benefits received continue to lessen. In an essay by Paolo Virno I've been
discussing elsewhere Virno talks about the growth of administration in
post-fordist production. It seems to me that you're right in part that the
welfare state hasn't simply disappeared and that this is compatible w/
Virno's claims about administraion, one could argue that the welfare state
is transformed/transforming to a more purely administrative function.

Here in my state, Illinois, recent budget crises resulted in some $370
billion dollars being removed from Medicaid (a health care provisioning
program for the very poor), resulting in fees for presecription services
being introduced (an additional hardship for an already hard hit population
but more relavent here) which place an additional burden on the
administration of benefits. Given that budgets are not being raised, this
means processing the fees will require a shifting of resources internally
from paying for benefits to more administrative functions.

Various pieces of the remaining 'welfare state' - institutions aimed at
providing job training and assisting in meeting basic needs - are
increasingly in private hands (though often recieving some level of state
funding), particularly medical clinics, housing assistance, etc.

In my state the activities of not for profit organizations accounts for
approximately 10% of total economic activity, a figure that was for me
pretty startling. This leaves out for-profit agencies fulfilling what were
previously state functions.

Another trend in state spending has been the channeling of funds through
police and criminal justice related programs, as a result of easier access
to funds if a program is linked somehow to fighting crime. More recently
this has can be seen here in the 'homeland security' public discussions -
more than just hysteria, the discussions of homeland security entail an
extension of administrative functions and a linking of other functions to
policing/security (like public health programs, for example. I know people
who work diagnosing, tracking, and treating cases of tuberculosis among the
very poor and homeless here in Chicago. Projects of this sort that can be
linked to 'homeland secturity' have a much easier time getting funding,
resulting in reshaping 'welfare' style benefit provision further toward
social control/administration.)

just my thoughts.

best,
Nate



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